caffeine

If you study this list of the 22 best coffee shops in NYC very closely—mapping out which neighborhoods have the highest concentrations of quality espresso, determining which brewing and roasting trends are on the rise—you will have wasted quite a bit of time.

Kids these days are straight up zooted and bouncing off the emergency room walls, thanks to copious supplies of Adderrall and Ritalin and all the other ADHD drugs that they got from you. (They learned it by watching you, okay?) If we'd simply been giving our kids Vivarin this whole time, none of this would have happened.

It must be said right up front: coffee is a utilitarian beverage that exists mainly to wake you up. Therefore, treating coffee as some delicate wine-like treat that can only be appreciated by a select group of gourmands is absurd. Or is it?

No longer satisfied with playing second fiddle to peanuts at all your sportsball games, Cracker Jacks is getting x-treme. They have created a new line, Cracker Jack'D, which contains caffeine and is meant to, yes, jack you up.

Like its energy drink brethren Monster Energy, there's a chance 5-Hour Energy might kill you. According to the New York Times, the FDA is investigating 13 deaths over the past four years that might be linked to consumption of the tiny, highly-caffeinated energy drink.

When I'm out on the "lecture circuit" (out back of the 7-11), I'm always hearing you sad sack types whining about why you just can't get in shape. "I don't know how to get motivated," you sad sack types whine. "I don't have the motivation," you continue. It makes me so sick I just want to vomit out the 36-ounce Red Bull I just drank—for motivation!

A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that over a 13-year period studied, there "was a significant inverse association between coffee consumption and mortality," meaning that people who drank coffee had a lower risk of death, particularly from "heart disease, respiratory problems, strokes, injuries and accidents, diabetes and infections."

The FDA is going to investigate whether the "Aeroshot" canisters of inhalable caffeine are actually safe. When you hear about widely available and totally unregulated drugs like this that are available with absolutely no medical supervision whatsoever to any kid who wanders into a convenience store, it makes you ask: is that stuff any good?

Earlier this week, the University of New Hampshire announced that it would be banning the sale of energy drinks on campus, in order to "keep its students safe." From energy, presumably. Shortest-lived dumb college banning ever!